Ranking the 10 greatest Australian men\u2019s tennis players of the Open Era \u2013 ft. Hewitt, Laver, Rosewall<\/a><\/p>\n Now he has taken his game to the next level as he has stepped up to the professional ranks and won his first ATP Tour match on Tuesday, beating fellow qualifier Marcos Giron of the United States 6-3 6-4 in 74 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty surreal to win here,\u201d Hewitt said after his victory against Giron. \u201cObviously I saw my dad play here. I came to his last tournament, I remember. There are so many memories of that. To make it to round two, it\u2019s very special.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting wins on the senior ATP Tour is the ultimate dream for any player and Hewitt has finally reached his big goal after a long journey to the top.<\/p>\n This teenager developed tennis skills as he grew up in The Bahamas, and when the family relocated to the Gold Coast in 2021.<\/p>\n When asked by Tennis Australia<\/a> to reflect on his tennis memories, he reflected back on some of his father\u2019s great moments.<\/p>\n \u201cI have obviously a lot of memories watching my dad play,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember watching his last Australian Open here. That was a cool experience. Him playing [at] Rod Laver [Arena] and me being there watching \u2013 and it was just a special experience that week.<\/p>\n \u201cI had my first lesson in The Bahamas, actually with a few of my friends. And it was just a lot of fun. Just for fun at the start. And then didn\u2019t really get fully, seriously into it until I was about 12.\u201d<\/p>\n Cruz was also asked about his dream doubles partner and he offered up this response: \u201cObviously Carlos (Alcaraz) and Jannik (Sinner), but I\u2019d love to play with some of the Aussie boys as well, like Demon (Alex de Minaur). That would be pretty cool as well, I looked up to him a lot.<\/p>\n Jannik Sinner with a young Cruz Hewitt<\/p>\n<\/div>\n His match-up against De Minaur in Washington is a special moment, as Alex has been a constant figure in his tennis life up to this point.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen Cruz grow up for the past 10 years. I\u2019ve seen him become the man that he is right now. I\u2019ve hit with him countless times.\u201d said De Minaur.<\/p>\n \u201cWe both came here early before the tournament. The first few days we hit with each other. So it\u2019s going to be a pretty cool feeling I think to be able to play him. I\u2019m excited for it. It\u2019s going to be a lot of fun.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s earned his way to where he is right now. He\u2019s been playing some incredible tennis and \u2018big boy\u2019 tennis. I\u2019m going to have to be ready and hopefully make his life as difficult as I can make it.<\/p>\n \u201cEver since he started, he picked up the racquet, ever since he was playing junior tournaments, the expectation, the eyeballs, the spotlight was already on him. It\u2019s not easy when there is that kind of weight behind your surname.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what he\u2019s done an incredible job of is maturing and really getting a good head on his shoulders and coming into his own, becoming his own player, and really dealing with the spotlight and the expectations really, really well, and ultimately coming out and having these results on his own and kind of showing that he deserves to be where he is.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve hit with Cruz since for the last three, four years almost at every Slam. He\u2019s out there, and we always hit with each other.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great to see him grow and develop and year after year becoming more of a man obviously and having this really good game and growing into his own body. Now he\u2019s out here beating some very high-quality players.\u201d<\/p>\n While having a former world No 1 as your father has to help your chances of reaching the top of the sport, Cruz Hewitt deserves so much credit for taking his career to these heights at the age of 17.<\/p>\n What comes next could be even more exciting.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Nick Kyrgios sparks outrage for slamming Lleyton Hewitt\u2019s son after Jannik Sinner practice session<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Who is Cruz Hewitt? Inside story on the wonder kid who is emerging from the shadow of his famous father<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cruz Hewitt has been on the radar of tennis fans around the world throughout his entire life, but his status could be about to leap to a whole new level as he looks to emerge from the shadow of his famous father. Lleyton Hewitt was a world No 1 and Wimbledon champion who maximised his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Jannik](\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Jannik-Sinner-with-a-young-Cruz-Hewitt.jpg\")
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